[GOAL] Re: Meaning of Open Access

[Jan Velterop]

It is perfectly understandable that one has to accept less than ideal outcomes sometimes. Also for OA. That's life. But to lower ambitions in the process and to present those lower ambitions as the bees knees is a mistake. Steve Hitchcock's remark that "BOAI was more a strategy than a definition, based on two routes to OA, green and gold. It looks like we are placing definition above strategy in order to railroad gold over green" is baffling. If you first state what you want (the definition the goal) and then formulate how you think you should try to get to what you want (the strategy), it makes no sense at all to subsequently dismiss what you want as "a 10-year old definition" and to question putting definition above strategy (implying that strategy be put above definition). Strategy to achieve what, exactly? Strategy 'ins Blaue hinein', since you have dismissed the goal? 

Further comments interleaved in Stevan's post below.

Jan

On 10 May 2012, at 12:08, Stevan Harnad wrote:

> On 2012-05-10, at 4:43 AM, Jan Velterop wrote:
> 
>> I might be convinced by his core argument, and
>> quite possibly other people on this list as well,
>> if Stevan cum suis could come up with credible
>> evidence that in order to get universities and
>> funders to mandate deposit in what they call
>> OA-repositories requires watering down OA
>> and not sticking to what OA was meant to be
>> according to the BOAI. 
> 
> The evidence is that virtually all the c. 250  Green 
> OA mandates that have actually succeeded in getting 
> adopted to date (see ROARMAP) are for free online 
> access (Gratis OA) only, not for Libre (or "BOAI") OA.
> http://roarmap.eprints.org

It's significant that many of these mandates are so-called ID/OA, in which OA doesn't stand for Open Access, but for Optional Access. So this is what has become of the sensible ambitions of OA as formulated in the BOAI, is it? Optional Access.

> 
> (The mandates are mostly also for the author's
> final draft, not for the publisher's PDF.)

Exactly. At that stage it would be very easy for authors to attach a CC-BY licence or equivalent to their manuscript. But we don't even seem to ask.

> 
> The reason is that all authors are for free online
> access (at least), the majority of publishers
> endorse (only) free online access (unembargoed)
> and most of the remaining publishers endorse free
> online access (only) after an embargo.

But publishers' endorsement (if that is what it is – I'd call it reluctant acceptance) is irrelevant when it concerns authors' manuscripts and not publishers' pdfs, as you've always been arguing, Stevan.

> 
> As evidence that going against authors' preferences

> makes it harder to get mandates adopted, several
> mandates have been delayed or blocked because
> authors wanted the publisher's PDF rather than their
> own final drafts to be the drafts that were freely accessible
> online. 

This points to delayed OA as the most achievable short-term solution (most mandates accept embargoes). Why not declare that an interim goal, a stage post on the road to real, full OA? You may well get publishers on board, obviating the need for mandates, which have embargoes anyway. Indeed, looking at PMC, many publishers already deposit their articles there with an embargo.

> 
> (The solution was to explain to the authors why
> "lowering the bar" to the author's final draft would
> generate much more free access, and already made
> a huge difference for access-denied users, whereas
> persuading publishers who had already endorsed 
> immediate-Gratis Green OA to endorse Libre OA
> would be a long, and possibly endless slog. A similar
> rationale is used for "lowering the bar" to the most
> successful and effective mandate model, ID/OA 
> [immediate deposit -- optional access] + "Almost-OA"
> via the email-eprint-access Button for Closed Access 
> deposits during the embargo. There are all examples
> of "lowering the bar" -- "reaching for the reachable" --
> in order to get much more access for researchers, 
> rather than to continue to make do with access-denial 
> year in and year out, by holding out for the unreachable.)

No, I'm not at all advocating 'holding out for the unreachable'. Instead, pocket what you can pocket, but don't make a second best watered-down version of OA look like the ultimate goal. And certainly don't confuse the hell out of people with phrases like 'gratis OA', 'libre OA', 'green', 'gold', and 'ID/OA' to boot, where OA doesn't even stand for Open Access any longer.

It's straightforward enough: keep the ambition of full OA as defined in the BOAI, put anything that can be achieved towards that goal 'in the bag' in the meantime, but don't unhook the highwire at the far end or you'll never be able to cross the chasm to full Open Access.

> 
> I might add, without evidence, that I am certain that
> the fastest, surest (and probably the only) way to reach
> the currently unreachable (Libre OA, Gold OA, etc.) too
> is to grasp for what is already within reach ("lower the bar"). 
> Green Gratis OA itself, once it becomes universal, will be 
> what extends our reach, irreversibly.
> 
> (What follows is a response that I had meant to post to GOAL 
> yesterday, but inadvertently sent only to JISC-Repositories.)
> 
> Re-posted: 
> 
> I apologize for dwelling on what to some members of the GOAL 
> forum and the JISC-Repositories list may seem to be minor or 
> irrelevant points.  I would like to suggest that they are far from 
> being minor or  irrelevant, but go to the very heart of what OA is, 
> what it's for,  and how to make it happen:
> 
> On 2012-05-09, at 1:19 PM, Jan Velterop wrote:
> 
>> Of course the need for access isn't. What I'm
>> saying is that just 'gratis' OA won't feel much
>> like meaningful access to those who have to
>> ingest amounts of papers that are impossible
>> to ingest by unaided (by machine) reading.
>> This is an interesting article that illustrates that:
>> http://www.bmj.com/content/341/bmj.c6815
>> (not OA, unfortunately)
> 
> Jan, I  think your reply does not address the
> question I asked.. You made what looks like a
> spurious dichotomy, between those who can
> afford sufficient access and those who can't keep 
> up with the relevant literature.
> 
> That does not cover the relevant options.
> 
> There are those who can afford sufficient access
> and those who cannot. And for those who cannot
> afford sufficient access, providing Green Gratis OA 
> is most definitely providing "meaningful" access.
> 
> For those whose problem is not access but tools
> to help them keep up with the relevant literature
> -- note that this is not an access problem but a
> filtering/alerting/search/navigation problem --
> one can develop solutions without any reference
> to OA. In fact, publishers and secondary indexers
> will be happy to provide such services on the
> full non-OA corpus. Publishers would be delighted
> to form a consortium to help users navigate paid
> content (in fact they are already beginning to do
> it) -- especially if we would just stop the clamor
> for OA (Gratis OA!).
> 
> So what is really at issue is whether Green Gratis OA 
> is indeed not "meaningful" enough to warrant "lowering
> the  bar" in order to mandate it.
> 
> According to Jan, it is not.
> 
> According to me, it most definitely is: in fact, it is the
> first and foremost reason for providing OA at all.
> 
> What do other GOAL and JISC readers think?
> 
> (I am also willing to make a bet that once Green
> Gratis OA mandates from institutions and funders
> have generated enough OA content to make it worth 
> their while, a generation of bright doctoral students in
> computer science and scientometrics will be more
> than happy to provide filtering and navigation tools
> beyond Jan's wildest dreams. And so will Google.
> All that's missing is that Green Gratis OA content
> that Jan does not find meaningful enough... See 
> citebase for the faintest of foretastes (crafted by
> a Southampton doctoral student, Tim Brody, also
> the architect of ROAR, and limited only by the 
> sparseness of OA content):
> http://www.citebase.org/ )
> 
> Stevan Harnad

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